How does one get a game to look as good as blacksmith?

News & General Discussion
1

Does unity come with everything to make a game that looks as good as blacksmith.

It’s an impressive demo. Im thinking that if you want to make a game that looks as good as blacksmith you have to do the following

  1. Make higher poly models
  2. Use really large and detailed textures
  3. Get some fantastic shaders.

I feel like I am missing something in the process. What am I missing?

2

Maybe have the experience that the Unity guys have making games? Seems to me that is critical.

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3

I would say that’s a given. I am looking more for technical reasons.

4

An artist. A real one that does high quality work. Raising poly count or texture res is seriously missing the point.

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5

That also makes sense. I guess what I am looking for is that this tech demo looks as close as possible to the unreal engine. If one were to start from scratch, what would be the steps to take in order to achieve the same production quality.

6
  1. Get an AAA artist, probably from polycount or wherever.
  2. Use Alloy shaders.
  3. Use scion post fx.
  4. Actually be a good art director. << be surprised just what a colossal difference it is.

That’ll get you there, pretty much.

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7

So what you’re saying is that live gameplay can’t look good? :wink:

8

No :slight_smile:

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9

What would you say makes a good art director

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Experience, a good eye and technical knowledge of the platform or media to understand benefits and limitations. Portfolios can show you what you need to know if you are not one of those that cannot artistically tell the difference between a Faberge Easter Egg and a hard boiled egg.

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11

Weren’t they using tech that isn’t available in Unity right now? Like temporal AA and stuff.

12

Money and skills I would imagine.

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13

I think the fact that experienced artists produced these assets is more telling. Unity is certainly capable of it.

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14

I’ve said this many times, but here’s one for the road.

Firstly define “artist”, it’s a bit of a broad field and some are technical / scientific experts as well. If were talking about “meshes” in 3D art, some of the simplest scenes (not far above cubes) have won the OMG graphics awards. Like Koola’s arch viz for example…

What you need to make things look good and / or realistic.

  • A heavy understanding of colour composition.
  • In depth knowledge of lighting and PBR.
  • Deep knowledge of shaders / rendering pipelines.
  • Decent understanding of post effects and it’s effect on levels.
  • A good understanding of level design and architecture.

Once you’re familiar with the above, essentially sky’s the limit (performance dependant of course)… Again just for reference below shows how a scene comes together. Finally finishing off with what you could achieve…
2321091--156515--koola_breakdown_01.gif

2249041--150255--16434187458_8c2b2f0c79_o.jpg

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15

The first step in AAA visuals can be non-technical. Check out the concept art used for lighting targets in The Last of Us (pages 4-6):
http://miciwan.com/SIGGRAPH2013/Lighting%20Technology%20of%20The%20Last%20Of%20Us.pdf

If you don’t have a target for your ultimate look, you’re just sort of winging it.

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16

Ah, it’s nice the see the example progression of lighting on the koala gif. Saves me in one picture from reading dozens of pages of explanations.

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17

in addition > lots of money

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18

Why?

19

Hiring AAA artists + coders is money…or am i wrong ? even if you do it yourself it’s about money, if you have enough, you can spend more time on it, if you don’t, you have to earn some, meaning less time available for the game …
btw i think the BS demo was by paid persons…
but i’d be curious to read your POV tough.

20
  1. Be a good artist.
  2. Be a good artist.
  3. Be a good artist.

Its not your texture res.

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